Rebtel, an independent mobile VoIP company, announced new results from the second part of a two-part survey, which takes a look at the way online American adults choose to communicate through social media other than in-person.
The survey was conducted on behalf of Rebtel by Harris Interactive in May 2011 among 2,361 U.S. adults aged 18+.
The survey focused on three specific aspects related to the consumption of social media and voice/phone, including:
– Expected frequency of use of social media communication methods in the near future
– Social media consumption habits of online U.S. adults when communicating with certain people
– Popularity of social media communication among online U.S. adults if they could only choose one method to communicate with certain people
Women are More Social than Men
According to the study, women are much heavier users of social network/media to communicate than men, leading by a wide margin in three out of four categories:
– Among the 92% of the U.S. online adult population that communicates with friends other than in-person, 61% use social network/media to communicate, with women (68%) significantly more likely than men (54%) to use this method to stay in touch. This translates to approximately 75M women who communicate with friends other than in-person use social networks vs. 57M men.
– Among the 93% of the U.S. online adult population that communicates with family other than in-person, 51% use social network/media to communicate, and women (60%) are significantly more likely than men (42%) to use this method to stay in touch. This translates to approximately 67M women who communicate with family other than in-person use social networks vs. 44M men.
– Among the 58% of the U.S. online adult population that communicates with work colleagues other than in-person, 28% use social network/media to communicate, and women (34%) are significantly more likely than men (22%) to use this method to stay in touch. This translates to approximately 21M women who communicate with work other than in-person use social networks vs. 16M men.
When given the option to choose one communication method to stay in touch with friends (other than in-person), 15% of those who communicate with friends other than in-person or approximately 32M said they would choose social network/media, with women (18%) much more likely than men (12%) to choose this method. When given the option to choose one communication method to stay in touch with family (other than in-person), 6% of those who communicate with family other than in person or approximately 13M said they would choose social network/media, with women (6%) nearly identical with men (5%) to choose this method. And if they could only choose one communication method to stay in touch with work colleagues (other than in-person), 6% of those who communicate with work colleagues other than in person or approximately 8M Americans said they would choose social network/media, with women (8%) being twice as likely as men (4%) to do so.
Men More Likely to Use Phone/Voice to Communicate
While women appear to be significantly heavier users of social network media to communicate, this is a far departure from the differences between men and women who use phone/voice to stay in touch.
– Among the 92% of the U.S. online adult population that communicates with friends other than in-person, 74% use voice to stay in touch, with women (73%) and men (75%) nearly identical. This translates to approximately 81M women and 79M men.
– Among the 93% of the U.S. online adult population that communicates with family other than in-person, 81% use phone/voice to communicate, and of those who do, women (79%) are less likely than men (84%) to use this method. This translates to approximately 88M women and 89M men.
– Among the 58% of the U.S. online adult population that communicates with work colleagues other than in-person, 71% use phone/voice to communicate, with women (70%) slightly less likely than men (73%) to use this method. This translates to approximately 44M women and 53M men.
When given the option to choose one communication method to stay in touch with friends (other than in-person), 38% of those who communicate with friends other than in-person or approximately 82M said they would choose voice/phone, with women (35%) less likely than men (40%) to choose this method. When given the option to choose one communication method to stay in touch with family (other than in-person), 58% of those who communicate with family other than in person or approximately 127M said they would choose phone/voice, with women (56%) less likely than men (60%) to choose this method. And if they could only choose one communication method to stay in touch with work colleagues (other than in-person), 33% of those who communicate with work colleagues other than in person or approximately 45M Americans said they would choose phone/voice, with women (28%) much less likely than men (37%) to choose this method.
Expected Frequency of Use of Social Network/Media
Among those online adults who use social media to communicate with their friends/family/spouse/significant other/work colleagues one out of five (19%) expect to use social network/media more in the near future to communicate with these groups, representative of approximately 27M American adults. Of this group men (23%) are significantly more likely to indicate this than women (16%). Related findings also show that 11% expect to use social network/media less in the near future to communicate with these groups and 70% expect to use social network/media the same amount in the near future to communicate with these groups, with women (74%) being significantly more likely to indicate this than men (65%).
“Our findings show that men tend to lag behind women when it comes to communicating with others through social media, which debunks other recent studies that suggest that men are more savvy networkers between the sexes,” said Andreas Bernstrom, CEO of Rebtel.
